Identification of novel glycosylation events on human serum-derived factor IX.

Human Factor IX is a highly post-translationally modified protein that is an important clotting factor in the blood coagulation cascade. Functional deficiencies in Factor IX result in the bleeding disorder haemophilia B, which is treated with plasma-derived or recombinant Factor IX concentrates. Here, we investigated the post-translational modifications of human serum-derived Factor IX and report previously undescribed O-linked monosaccharide compositions at serine 141 and a novel site of glycosylation. At serine 141 we observed two monosaccharide compositions, with HexNAc1Hex1NeuAc2 dominant and a low level of HexNAc1Hex1NeuAc1. This O-linked site lies N-terminal to the first cleavage site for the activation peptide, an important region of the protein that is removed to activate Factor IX. The novel site is an N-linked site in the serine protease domain with low occupancy in a non-canonical consensus motif at asparagine 258, observed with a HexNAc4Hex5NeuAc2 monosaccharide composition attached. This is the first reported instance of a site of modification in the serine protease domain. The description of these glycosylation events provides a basis for future functional studies and contributes to structural characterisation of native Factor IX for the production of effective therapeutic biosimilars and biobetters.

S-Trap Eliminates Cell Culture Media Polymeric Surfactants for Effective Proteomic Analysis of Mammalian Cell Bioreactor Supernatants.

Proteomic analysis of bioreactor supernatants can inform on cellular metabolic status, viability, and productivity, as well as product quality, which can in turn help optimize bioreactor operation. Incubating mammalian cells in bioreactors requires the addition of polymeric surfactants such as Pluronic F68, which reduce the sheer stress caused by agitation. However, these surfactants are incompatible with mass spectrometry proteomics and must be eliminated during sample preparation. Here, we compared four different sample preparation methods to eliminate polymeric surfactants from filtered bioreactor supernatant samples: organic solvent precipitation; filter-assisted sample preparation (FASP); S-Trap; and single-pot, solid-phase, sample preparation (SP3). We found that SP3 and S-Trap substantially reduced or eliminated the polymer(s), but S-Trap provided the most robust cleanup and highest quality data. Additionally, we observed that SP3 sample preparation of our samples and in other published data sets was associated with partial alkylation of cysteines, which could impact the confidence and robustness of protein identification and quantification. Finally, we observed that several commercial mammalian cell culture media and media supplements also contained polymers with similar mass spectrometry profiles, and we suggest that proteomic analyses in these media will also benefit from the use of S-Trap sample preparation.